Tales from the Rugby World Cup

This is our next to last night in the campervan. Tomorrow night we will be in a real bed in a real house. The brother of a good friend of Tom’s from high school emigrated to New Zealand at least 30 years ago. His name is Neil and he coincidentally played rugby for Notre Dame in the first rugby match that Tom ever saw. Neil and his wife Karen have invited us to spend tomorrow night with them in Hamilton. Saturday we’ll be up early to drive the 130 km into Auckland for the semi-finals. We have our last night in the campervan Saturday night after Wales vs France and Sunday we move into our room at the Bamber House Hostel which we have through the finals. Since the last blog on Oct. 11th we drove the short distance from Tokoroa to Matamata. Matamata is famous for being where they built the Lord of the Rings set of Hobbiton. They were filming the upcoming movie “The Hobbit” so tours were cancelled. After a coffee and some very touristy pictures we drove on to the mineral baths in Te Aroha. For NZ$36 we got our own private mineral bath with what was called the only natural seltzer mineral water bath in the world. The campsite was also supposed to have a mineral pool, but the owner (a Swiss lady who had come to New Zealand as a scientist to do research on dairy farming and was deserted by her husband after they bought the campsite) claimed it was too wet and windy to fill up the pool. We had a pleasant evening in the kitchen hearing stories of the travels of a young English couple who were traveling the planet as geologists. Today we pulled out of Te Aroha in a steady downpour. The weather report said it would clear and as we headed north into the Coromandel Peninsula the rain slowed to a drizzle and then stopped with an occasional shower. We visited the town of Thames and after a quick look around with a stop at the local rugby and sports center to watch the areas U-13 provincial sides playing we went to the town of Kaiaua on the seabird coast for what we had been told was award winning fish and chips. The fish definitely lived up to the hype. Fortunately Carolyn had her own bottle of vinegar to properly season the meal. After lunch we retraced our route to the Miranda Holiday Park where we have parked for the night. There is a great mineral pool here which we enjoyed for a good while before a couple of the U-13 rugby teams from the Thames tournament showed up to take the place over. THS